Russia and China have become partners and leaders of a Eurasion strategy to create a bifurcated East and West World.
Russia and China have become partners and leaders of a Eurasion strategy to create a bifurcated East and West World.
10/15/2015
By Arthur F Laramee
Whereas Iran's nostalgia for its Persian glory days has driven it's strategy to become a nuclear power, Russia 's nostalgia for the days of the USSR and China's nostalgia for the days of the Yuan Dynasty and the Silk Road travelled by Marco Polo are driving their current geopolitical projects that represent a comprehensive approach to achieving the splitting of the world into two axes. The New Silk Road is the foundation for this strategy.
The New Silk Road is a great idea and will be helpful to all the target countries as it will be very good for China and Russia but it will also provide the basis to get off the International Dollar which will eliminate our ability to sanction any country in the East Coalition and eliminate our freedom to print money willy nilly like we have to date. It will also make all the money we have spent and continue to spend on foreign aid to buy influence a waste of money and time. Eventually, I believe the United States will lose many of its allies as trade and Investment opportunities will lure them away. I believe this because of China's success at working trade deals excluding the dollar.
Russia is courting Germany with some success as we depress our own ability to compete in the global marketplace of energy and offset Russia's influence.
The New Silk Road vision needs to be seen in context of the infrastructures built, being built,and being formed. Start with the BRICS and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), both of which just wrapped up concurrent meetings in the city of Ufa, Russia in July.
The SCO originally consisted of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. They have an Observer status which are potential members and a Partners in Dialogue status which are interested countries. At the close of the meeting in Ufa, President Vladimir Putin announced that India and Pakistan had been accepted as new members. In the Observer category are Afghanistan, Iran and Mongolia. He also announced that Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Armenia and Nepal joined existing Partners in Dialogue Belarus, Sri Lanka andTurkey. Thus SCO represents half the world population and much of Eurasia. The SCO is described as the alternative to NATO. Their focus is trade, science, energy, education and cooperation. The focus of the July meeting was on nuclear development, energy, terrorism and financial cooperation expanding their scope of interest.
The New Silk Road vision consists of uniting the SCO countries via roads, high speed rail, telecommunications and sea to achieve robust trade and Investment. The target is to be completed by 2025. Other mechanisms have been established to support this vision. The BRICS have established the NDB (New Development Bank) and the SCO has established its Development Bank at the Ufa Summit to support the building of the New Silk Road vision. Internally China has established the Silk Road Fund and externally the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. With all of these integrated projects both Russia and China will have ample opportunity to stabilise the Yuan and the Ruble as major international currencies used for trade and investment at the expense of the US Dollar. When all of the plans by these organizations are taken into consideration, it is hard to see the West dominated organizations having any where near the clout and importance they have today. Also note, the proposed plan to extend a planned Beijing Moscow high speed rail line to Berlin.
The Chinese have already built a 1300 KM normal speed rail line from Yiwu China in the Zhejiang Province just 300 KM south of Shanghai that extends to Madrid Spain. It began operations on November 18, 2014. On that day a train carrying 82 tons of export goods weighing more than 1000 tons left on a 21 day trip to Madrid traversing China east to west,Kazakhstan, Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France and Spain.
Notice Iran is an Observer with SCO. Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon expressed the desire for Iran to join the SCO as a member soon. This bodes well for Iran now that the United States has backed off the sanctions on Iran. Russia and China see Iran as a stabilizing influence (and probably the Taliban) in Afghanistan where the Silk Road will be passing through. With Iran's integration into the SCO the trade and Investment opportunities will flourish and Persia may not be far behind.
Also in light of this vision and the zeal with which the leaders are pursuing it, the behavior of China is, more easy to understand. China's acquisition of Tibet and it's attitude towards it neighbors especially Taiwan should be viewed as nostalgic to its place during the Yuan Dynasty. Also it's development of military use islands in the South China Sea is part of this nostalgia. As it modernizes it's country its needs for energy resources are growing exponentially thus it's hyper quest for energy resource acquisition. The development of a world class Navy was originally seen as required to defend the sea lane supply chain. But in light of China's decision to become powerful enough to pull off its vision, the naval developments need to be viewed in context of its upgrade in missiles, air power, space weaponry and hacking expertise. Also note that China owns the bulk of Rare Earth Elements critical to the electronics industry.
The resulting political map and balance of power will be dramatically different from today.